Blind Panic (22 page)

“I’m Belinda Froggatt,” the woman told us, groping her way toward the living room.

I closed the front door behind me, and then I went across and took hold of her arm. She looked up and tried to smile. Her eyes didn’t appear to be blind, but she was staring at my left shoulder, as if I had a second head.

“When did this happen?” asked Amelia. “When did you all go blind?”

I guided Belinda Froggatt over to one of the big old-fashioned armchairs and helped her to sit down. Amelia and I sat down opposite her, on the couch. The living room was decorated with floral wallpaper, and gilt-framed mirrors, and thick crimson drapes with swags and tiebacks. I had always fantasized about a nineteenth-century living room like this, with a bell to tinkle so that my French serving maid could bring me a large Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, and then leave the room to reveal that she was wearing nothing but a lace cap and a frilly apron and a pair of very high stiletto heels.

“It was the day before yesterday, at the craft fair. We hold a craft fair every year and it’s always crowded. I take my quilts to sell. I don’t get much time to sew quilts, what with this place to run, but this year I had three.”

She touched her fingertips to her cheek, as if to reassure herself that she was still there, even though she couldn’t see. Looking at her now, I realized that the oil painting of the girl in the hall was probably her, or maybe her mother. She had once been very attractive, and she still hadn’t lost her well-defined cheekbones, or her dark brown eyes, blind though they were.

“All I can remember is that some photographers were taking pictures. I recognized one of them, John Leppard from
The Marin Scope,
but there were six or seven others, too, and their cameras were flashing so bright that I was dazzled, and then suddenly I couldn’t see.

“I could hear people shouting that they couldn’t see, either. There was a whole lot of confusion, and people bumping into me, and the stand right next to me was tipped over altogether. It was all homemade jellies and preserves, and the glass jars smashed all over the floor.

“I found my chair and I sat down and decided it was safer not to move. I sat there and sat there with all of this pandemonium going on around me, and after what seemed like a very long time, a paramedic came up to me and asked me if I was okay, and then a very kind man drove me home. I don’t know who he was. All I can remember was that he smelled of cigarettes.”

I said, “These other people who were taking photographs…can you tell us what they looked like?”

Belinda Froggatt frowned. “That was the strange thing. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, and I saw the flashes from their cameras. But I couldn’t really describe them to you. It was like—when you turned your head to look at them—they were someplace else. I do remember, though, that their faces were very pale. It was almost as if they were wearing hockey masks.”

“Was there anybody else there you didn’t recognize?" asked Amelia. “Maybe some character wearing black, with a hat on, and necklaces?”

Belinda Froggatt thought about that, biting her lip, but then she shook her head. “The only person who caught my attention was an old man who was standing by the entrance, wearing a very odd hat like a pirate’s hat, and a furry wrap—deerskin, I’d say—and, yes, he was wearing necklaces, lots of them. And he had marks on his face, two marks on each cheek. I don’t know whether they were scars or makeup.”

“Could he have been an Indian?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Indian that looked like that before. I just remember pointing him out to my friend Lily, on the jelly and preserve stand, and thinking how eccentric he was. She said he looked like Long John Silver’s grandmother. She did make me laugh." She paused. “She went blind, too.”

I said, “How are you feeling now, Belinda? Is there anything we can do foryou? Make you something to eat, maybe? How about a drink?”

“I’m all right. Thank you for asking. I had a cold chicken
leg earlier, and a glass of milk. I think I can survive until Deputy Ramsay comes to rescue me. Everybody else will have to, won’t they?”

“Only one thing more. Do you happen to know a Dr. Ernest Snow? He moved out here from the East Coast a couple of years ago to live with his daughter and her family. Old guy, white hair, very upright.”

Belinda Froggatt nodded. “Dr. Snow? Of course I do. Well, I know just about everybody in Memory Valley. I sure do. I’ve been living here since 1962, and opened up this place in 1978.”

“Can you tell us where he lives?”

She sat up straighter, cocking her head to one side. “Why do you want to know? You’re not debt collectors or anything like that, are you?”

Amelia said, “Of course not. Dr. Snow is a longtime acquaintance of ours. You probably know that he’s an expert on Native American anthropology. We…uh…we did some research together on Indian rituals.”

Belinda Froggatt took out a crumpled-up Kleenex and fastidiously wiped her nose. “I’m not sure. So long as you’re telling me the truth, and Ernest isn’t going to give me a hard time.”

“Belinda,” I said, “You don’t seriously think that
anybody
would be out here at four A.M., with the power out all over the country and everybody going blind, dunning an eighty-year-old man for a couple of Diners Club payments, do you?”

“No, of course not. You’re right. Dr. Snow lives with his daughter on Jumping Dance Lane.”

“Thank you,” said Amelia. “What’s his daughter’s name?”

“Meredith—Meredith Burgess. I don’t know the number of the Burgess house but Jumping Dance Lane is right across the main square and second on the left…or is it third? They live about a third of the way along, and they have a yellow house with a very large white oak in front of it. Jack Burgess,
he’s a local attorney. Very nice man. Maybe a little smooth-talking for my liking, but very nice.”

I stood up, took hold of both of her bony hands with all her rings on, and kissed her on each cheek. She smelled faintly of some perfume that reminded me of my mother—Joy, maybe. “Let me tell you something, Belinda. When they come to write the history of what happened in America this morning—that’s if there’s anybody left to write it, and anybody left to read it—then the true heroine will be you.”

Belinda smiled. “So long as they spell my name right. There’s two Gs in Froggatt.”

Nationwide crisis or no nationwide crisis, it was far too early to wake up anybody, especially an elderly geezer like Dr. Snow. Besides, I was so tired that the carpet kept rising and falling, as if I had jet lag. Belinda directed us to a room upstairs, where there was a huge four-poster bed. She didn’t ask if we wanted separate bedrooms. Either she thought that we were too exhausted to care, or else she sensed in her blindness exactly what our relationship was all about, which to tell you the truth was more than I could.

We stripped to our skivvies and climbed under the home-stitched quilt, and we slept like two dead people for more than five hours. When I awoke, the first thing that I became aware of was sunshine, and a heap of snow—but it wasn’t a heap of snow, it was an intensely white cotton pillow, smelling of starch. For a few moments, I couldn’t understand where I was. I didn’t have an antique mahogany night table with a brass clock on it and a porcelain statuette of a Pierrot, and neither did anybody else I knew.

But then Amelia stretched and said, “Urrrggghhhhhhhh. Don’t tell me it’s time to get up.” Then I remembered where we were and what we were doing there.

She threw back the quilt, climbed out of bed, and drew back the drapes. I don’t exactly know what the word is to describe the way you feel when you can’t take your eyes off someone, even if you’re not lovers. The way you feel that every
curve of their back is perfect, every mole on their arms, as if everything about them was specifically made to please you. When she turned away from the window and I saw that little crease in the front of her pale green ribbony panties, I could have written a symphony about it. Or a country-and-western song, at worst.

“Cold shower?” asked Amelia, and I thought,
Yes, I probably need one.

Memory Valley, California

We raided Belinda’s refrigerator (even though it wasn’t working, and it was dark inside) and made ourselves a feast of cold chicken legs and Swiss cheese and red apples and stale bagels. We were still sitting at the kitchen table when Belinda came in, running her hand along the counter to guide herself. Outside the leaded-glass window, her small orchard was brilliant with sunshine. She couldn’t see it, but she stopped and cupped her hand to her ear for a moment and said, “The wind is getting up. I can hear it!”

“Listen, we’ve helped ourselves to some of your food, but we’ll replace it,” I told her. “Is there anything else you want us to bring you?”

“I would love some pecan pie, if you can find any. I don’t know what it is about going blind. I keep feeling like something sweet.”

“Well, you stay here and keep your door bolted. We’re going over to visit Dr. Snow.”

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,” said Belinda. “It’s a little frightening, being on my own here, not even knowing if it’s day or night.”

“Don’t worry,” said Amelia. “After we’ve seen Dr Snow, we’ll come right back.”

Once we had washed our plates, we left Belinda’s bed-and-breakfast and headed back toward Memory Valley’s main square. Two white-and-green-striped Fords from the
Marin County Sheriff’s Department were parked at angles by the ornamental fountain, and a group of very fat guys in deputies’ uniforms were standing around talking to a half dozen lean and ascetic-looking locals. As Amelia and I drove past, they all turned their heads and stared at us, and one of the deputies waddled toward the curb as if he intended to flag us down, but I kept on going—not
too
fast, but fast enough to leave Deputy Lardbutt standing in the middle of the road with his hands resting on his pudgy hips, frowning after us.

“Here it is, Jumping Dance Lane,” said Amelia, and we took a left. Three hundred yards along and there it was, the yellow house with the giant white oak outside. We parked and climbed out, and as we walked up the drive we could see a woman staring at us out of one of the bedroom windows. The wind was rising and the pages from a newspaper tumbled across the street, as if they were chasing one another.

Again, the doorbell didn’t work, but there was a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a glaring wolf’s head. Singing Rock had once told me that if your front door faces to the east, you should be sure to hang a wolf’s-head knocker on it to keep out the evil demons who always come from that direction, especiallywhen it starts to grow dark. My front door on East Seventeenth Street faced east, but the only apparitions who ever approached it were white-haired ladies looking for a tarot reading, or Velma from across the landing, wanting to borrow a cup of Jack Daniel’s.

I knocked twice, and the door was opened so quickly that it took us by surprise. We were confronted by a small freckly woman with vivid red hair, wearing the redheads’ uniform of green cardigan and green sweater to match, and black elastic-waisted slacks that were two sizes too big for her.

“Yes?” she demanded. It was obvious that
she
hadn’t gone blind. She looked aggressively from me to Amelia and back again, like an attack dog trying to decide which one of us to bite first.

“Hey, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to alarm you. We’re
looking for Dr. Ernest Snow, and Belinda Froggatt at the bed-and-breakfast said we might find him here.”

“Who are you? What do you want? You know what’s happened in this community, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do, ma’am, and that’s one of the reasons we’re here. You must be Mrs. Burgess. Am I right? Dr. Snow’s daughter?”

She didn’t get the chance to answer before a dry, patrician voice said, “That’s absolutely correct, sir! And if my eyes don’t deceive me,
you
must be Mr. Harry Erskine, and this lovely lady must be the delightful Ms. Amelia Crusoe!”

Flustered, the redhead turned around. Standing in the hall behind her was Dr. Snow. He looked as elegant as ever, in a green quilted smoking jacket, although his white pompadour was very much thinner now, and his cheekbones were much more prominent, and he was altogether
bonier.
He was carrying a silver-topped walking cane, and he came toward us with a limp.

“Arthritis,” he said. “One of the reasons I left Albany and came out here to California. Mind you, when it’s foggy, my knees still seize up. How the devil are you both?”

Meredith immediately melted. “So you’re
Harry,
and you’re
Amelia!
I am so,
so
sorry! But after what’s happened here, we can’t be too careful. Do you know, we heard gunshots last night, and I
never
heard gunshots before, not here. Not in Memory Valley.”

She beckoned us to come inside and led us through to a large conservatory at the back of the house. The conservatory was furnished with white wicker chairs with heaps of hand-embroidered cushions and aspidistras in porcelain planters. Through the windows, we could see a swimming pool, a sloping green lawn, and a small gazebo. It would have been middle-class idyllic, if the whole country hadn’t been collapsing all around us.

“I can only offer you juice or a Coke,” said Meredith. “They still haven’t told us when the power might be coming back on.”

I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t my job to frighten her. But I looked across at Dr. Snow, and I hoped he could tell by my expression that we hadn’t come here for a Facebook reunion.

“Merry, sweetheart,” he said, “why don’t you give me a little time alone with Harry and Amelia? I get the feeling that they have one or two rather
personal
questions that they want to ask me.”

“Oh. Okay, Daddy. Right.” Meredith looked disappointed, but all the same she got up and left the conservatory and closed the door behind her.

Dr. Snow stretched his right leg out straight and winced. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Harry? Hard to believe it ever really happened.”

“He’s back,” I said.

“He’s
back?
” Dr. Snow looked at us with his watery, solemn eyes, like an old spaniel that somehow knows that it doesn’t have very much longer to live. “Are you sure about this? I thought you told me that he could
never
come back.”

“All of these planes and cars crashing. All of these power outages. All of these people going blind. It’s him.”

“Do you have any evidence that it’s him? I suppose you must, or you wouldn’t have come here, would you?”

“Amelia has a sister, Lizzie. She and her family were on vacation in Hell’s Canyon when they went out cycling and met these really weird characters standing in the road. The family couldn’t agree if these characters looked like boxes, or mirrors, or puppets. But they all agreed on one thing: the characters’ eyes flashed and they all got instantly blinded.”

“Go on,” said Dr. Snow.

I glanced at Amelia, and then I said, “We wouldn’t have known who these characters were, or
what
they were. But when she was in the eye clinic, Lizzie kept on ranting about the One Who Went and Came Back.”

“
Misquamacus.
”

I nodded. “Amelia did her séance thing and got through to John Singing Rock, and John Singing Rock confirmed it.
It’s Misquamacus, and this time he’s determined to pull the rug out from under the whole of our society.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” mused Dr. Snow, shaking his head from side to side.

“
Funny?
”

“Well, funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. I had my own suspicions, you know, but I thought I was being paranoid. But there isn’t a terrorist organization in the entire world that’s capable of wreaking such havoc on such a scale. Not even the Russians could do this, and that’s supposing they would
want
to do it, or dare. The Russians depend on our economic stability for
their
economic stability, and they depend on us to maintain the balance of power between East and West.
They
don’t want to police Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan—they’d rather leave it to us. They tried in Afghanistan and look what happened.

“Only the magic of the First People is powerful enough to turn our whole country upside down. It is, after all,
their
country, not ours.”

Dr. Snow thought for a moment, and then his brow furrowed.

“
Misquamacus
,” he repeated. “But didn’t you say that you had exorcized him—
utterly
? You told me, didn’t you, that you had annihilated his very
substance?
His spiritual energy, his ectoplasm. You made it impossible for him to return to the living world, even as a ghost.”

“That’s what I thought, yes. But John Singing Rock said that so long as he’s remembered—even if he’s only remembered by other spirits—he still exists.”

“I see. I see. And he’s obviously found a way to come back to life?”

“He’s possessed the spirits of other dead medicine men—
hundreds
of them, from every tribe you can think of, all across the country. From Apache to Zuni.”

“A spirit who possesses other spirits. I never heard of such a thing, even in Indian mythology.”

Amelia said, “It’s true, Dr. Snow, believe me. Misquamacus
appeared in our hotel room in Portland. He didn’t
look
like himself, not outwardly. He looked like some other shaman, and he called himself Wovoka. But it was him, all right. He started to torture Singing Rock, but we managed to put a stop to that. He told us, though, that this was going to be the finish, as far as we were concerned. He’s going to blind us, and then he’s going to slaughter us, and then he’s going to tear down our cities brick by brick.”

“Of course, it’s impossible,” said Dr. Snow. “In fact, it’s quite absurd. Native American magic may be strong, but it’s not
that
strong.”

“That’s not the point,” I replied. “It’s the damage he’s going to do, the innocent lives that are going to be lost. He’s massacred thousands already.”

Amelia said, “We think we’ve found out how he’s doing it. Blinding people, I mean. Singing Rock gave us some clues, and we believe that he’s been using some kind of Pueblo Indian spirits called Eye Killers.”

Dr. Snow lifted one finger in excitement. “Eye Killers!
Eye
Killers! Of course! I should have thought of that myself!”

“You’ve heard of them? You know what they are?”

“Oh,
yes!
They’re a very interesting part of Pueblo Indian mythology—mainly Zuni, although the Hopi and the Acoma also have stories about similar demons.”

“We Googled them,” said Amelia. “Apparently they were created when girls got themselves pregnant with foreign objects, like cactus prongs.”

“Cactus prongs, yes. Or enormous phalluses fashioned out of clay. The Pueblo Indians have always been brilliant potters. I have a wonderful clay bird effigy made by Cicuye Indians. And some Acoma bowls. Would you care to see them?”

“Maybe later. What we really need to know is, are these Eye Killers real? And if they are, what can we do to stop them?”

Dr. Snow stood up and began to circle around us, the
brass ferrule of his cane tapping on the marble floor. “Sorry to be so restless. If I sit still for too long, my knee locks.” He tapped around us three times, and each time he looked as if he were just about to say something, but couldn’t quite find the right words.

Eventually, he said, “The thing about it is…the thing about it
is
…the Eye Killers themselves were real, but the popular myth about how they were created—that was almost certainly erroneous. About fifteen years ago a fascinating paper was published by the University of New Mexico Press, by a Zuni scholar, George Lonan. Lonan, incidentally, is the Zuni word for ‘cloud.’

“Lonan talked to a very old Zuni medicine man, and discovered that when Zuni girls became pregnant by a boy that their families did not approve of, they would protect the identity of their lovers by pretending that they had been pleasuring themselves with a cactus or a corncob or a clay phallus, and that is how they had fallen with a baby.

“The family would of course assume that the baby was some kind of unnatural being, and when it was born they would immediately put it into a kind of makeshift wooden coffin, with only a slit for its eyes, so that they could tell when the baby had died.”

“The babies were put into these coffins when they were still alive?” asked Amelia.

Dr. Snow stopped circling. “The Zunis believed that if they killed the babies themselves—by strangling or by drowning or tossing them into a fire—then the demons which possessed each inanimate object would take their revenge on them.”

“Revenge of the cactus prongs,” I put in.

“Ha! You may find it amusing,” said Dr. Snow, “but the prickly cactus was said by the Zuni to be capable of terrifying change, and to turn itself by night into a shapeless creature, like a giant slug covered with bristles that would crawl into a man’s mouth and down his throat and choke him.”

I kept my flippant comments to myself after that. Ever
since I had first encountered Misquamacus, I had been threatened by mythical Native American creatures just as horrifying as a giant cactus slug, and I knew that in some parallel dimension they really existed. I knew, too, that any shaman with the necessary skills could summon them through to the world of the living and cause indescribable mayhem. There was the Lizard of the Trees, for instance, which had looked like a giant Komodo dragon. It had been semitransparent—half reptile and half apparition—but it had still taken a man’s fingers off with one crunchy bite.

Dr. Snow said, “One day, twin babies were born to the daughter of a Zuni chief, a boy and a girl. The girl claimed that they were the children of a clay phallus, so they were put into makeshift coffins and carried out to a sacred place in the desert and left to die. But the story says that when Tawa the Sun Spirit saw what his people had done, he was enraged. He had tried for centuries to teach them to be tolerant and forgiving, and here they were, abandoning two newborn infants in the midday heat. To Tawa, it didn’t matter how the babies had been conceived. Even the child of a demon is helpless, and to leave a helpless child to die is unforgivable.